I was on Steam earlier tonight playing the Early Access title Grounded by Obsidian. When I quit for the night I saw a new discussion on the forums talking about how this guy just got his World Record speedrun title back and my first thought was Huh? Then when I actually thought about it I got irritated and I am going to explain why.
Speedruns for video game titles have been around for a very long time. I think they came about around the same time as High Score ones or No Death Runs. So around the time that Arcades became a huge hangout in the 70’s and 80’s. I have mad respect for people who legitimately get these records as I couldn’t see myself playing the same title over and over again for hours, days, or even years just to get this kind of record title.
So, when I saw that people are competing for the speedrun title for Grounded you would think that I would be respectful considering. Nope, I think these people are morons. The game is unfinished. There is only ONE storyline quest currently in the game while the rest are side quests given by a robot in the game which don’t count in speedruns. IF the game had a finished storyline then I wouldn’t irritated.
Since the title is Early Access it means that everything and anything can be changed whenever they update. New terrain, new enemies, etc. They will be adding to the storyline closer to the actual launch day. Once the game launches and has a finished base storyline I will respect those who do speed runs.
Until then all that is going on is a bunch of morons fighting over bragging rights for the beginning quest to an unfinished game. If you can’t actually finish the game then you can’t actually be speedrunning it for a World Record. That would be like speedrunning just the first level of Super Mario Bros. and then bragging about it because you beat the fastest run for just that level. I’ve never heard of such a thing and if that is where speedrunning is going then I don’t want to hear about it anymore.
Derek's Mindscape 